The new E book, Living Daily With Adult ADD or ADHD, 365 Tips o the Day, hasn’t got many reviews yet, tho it is starting to sell pretty well, thank you all. So when I got a bad review, it kind of hurt, like always.

Here’s from Libby: I am not certain what motivated me to purchase this. I bought it for Kindle, thinking I would read it while traveling. It isn’t BAD, it just doesn’t do much for me as I address the challenges of ADD, as both parent and educator.

I think there’s two problems here (hope there’s not a third, like the book is just no good). But, see, first of all, it’s not really a “book”, that you sit down and read, like while traveling or any other time. No, it’s like a daily devotional, or one of those calendars with a tip on each day, and you go through it one tip a day at your own pace. The idea of trying to sit and read it through – ugh! And also it’s probably really for someone who already knows a lot about ADD ADHD, kind of a review, a booster, reminder, encourager.

Second, it’s for adults, which might include high school students on up, but not particularly for parents of kids with ADDD.

So I think Libby was right, it really wasn’t for her, or for her traveling situation, and I appreciate her saying that it’s not bad: she didn’t have to offer that.

So are we ADD folks extra sensitive to criticism? I think so; we’ve had so much of it and with our tendency to mess up and to not finish things or to live up to expectations, etc., etc., our self esteem can be pretty shaky.

One of my strategies is to write about it, and another is to focus on the positives, like the good reviews, and not dwell on the negative ones.

13 Responses to Living Daily With Adult ADD or ADHD — ADD Tip o the Day 471

Here is my experience with this book and any other book.
The author said the tips should be read one by day! If only I have this patience to read only one by day.
So, I read a lot of pages, when I felt tired and begun to wonder: what I’m going to do now with all these tips?, I just looked at the last tip ( like if the book was a story ) and was looking what happened in the end! Then I returned to the middle, searching for a more interesting tip…and when I get really overwhelmed, I just said: may be it’s now high time to look for a new book about ADD or sth. else…
This pattern or way of consulting books repeats itself again and again whenever I found myself consulting any book.
When at high school, students used to laugh at me because I used to begin a book by the end! I was feeling embarassed and ashamed…the worst is, at the library, while I was supposed to study for math, I used to pick a book about Indian history and follow the same pattern…no need to say students were wondering if my mind is ok!

abder -sounds like you could use a strategy to help you with books so that you could get the most out of them, and for this book in particular. We do tend to lose interest quickly and to go off on tangents.

So maybe you do have a strategy? – Instead of following the format, one page a day, and working through the book, what would it be like if every day or so, you thumbed through the book and found a tip that looked interesting to you? but if you want to try it, maybe you can come up with a better strategy?

i would like you to get the most out of this book and hope that it would help you to make your life better
thank you for commenting
best wishes
doug

Thanks for your advice.
In fact, I found precious information in your other book “Your Life Could Be Better” about how some brains might function differently, and thus need different strategies.
That’s a powerful shift in my approach to my condition: influenced by the medical model, I used to see it as a flaw to be cured by trying hard to get organised, to improve one’s focus, willpower…
Now, I come to this other perspective: first, understanding how my mind is working (my patterns,…) and then, finding or even developping effective strategies to deal with that.

Hi Doug, this might come too late, but here’s my input: My strategy against this kind of stuff started with an unpleasant dream I had repeatedly about 10 years ago. When my therapist helped me figure out what was upsetting me into causing the nightmare, they misteriously stopped. So I started applying it to other stuff. It doesn’t work 100% of the time, but it works a lot of the time. Like when someone snaps at me for something, I try really hard to figure out if there’s guilt in the picture. One of two things happens: either I notice I do feel some guilt because I myself was doing something I myself find reproachable, and I say to myself “Well, you knew you shouldn’t have and you got caught in the act, suck it up”; or I realize the bad feeling just comes from the pang of being snapped at and think “Well, that guy was certainly being an asshole!”. I don’t know why, but knowing why I was feeling upset usually helps. Hope it helps someone else too.

ram – not too late at all.
Understanding our feelings, where they come from and why, is one of the pillars of therapy and can be very helpful, as you noted. That’s a great story.
Thank you for the comment.
Doug

That kind of stuff is hard to handle. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve had really positive feedback in the comments on my blog but every now and then I get a comment that hurts a little. What really annoys me is that it has the power to drive me NUTS! I get one negative comment and 10 positives and I focus on the negative. I’m working on that. I don’t want negative comments to ruin my day.

homey
that’s me exactly. it’s like a pebble in my shoe. i do find that writing about it helps to discharge it some. but still ruminating on the first bad review – from person who just didn’t get it!
thank you for this comment and for your great review
doug

Management and treatment of hyperactivity and ADHD, without drugs.
Hyperactive syndrome and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) treatment, from the perspective of the holistic method of Maria Summer, Rankweil/Austria.
Applied Speech therapy (Angewandte Logopaedie)
Hyperactive syndrome includes the following: intense myokinetic activity, attention disorders, irritability, impulsiveness, communication deficit, of children.
These children are constantly changing their mental mood. Sometimes, they exhibit behavioral disorders, even aggression.
Helmut Remschmidt, in his book “Kinder und Jugend Psychiatrie”, reports that this disorder is associated with disturbances in the developmental stages.
This hyperactivity can be due to organic brain lesions, or be a consequence of neglecting the child.
Child hyperactivity leads it to chaos, because it moves in space without purpose.
The great educator Maria Montessori in her book “The receptive mind” (1978), refers extensively in motion with educational purposes.
She writes that movement promotes the child’s spiritual growth and personality development.
“In nature, chaos would reign if every movement stopped, but the same would happen if the movement of beings lacked purpose.” Maria Montessori
Hyperactivity is characterized by high kinetic activity of the child, but this is without purpose, with children going from one task to another.
It’s a mental mess, and this leads to lack of concentration-attention, as observed in children and adults with increased impulsivity and irritability.
This child is not receptive; it is not able to accept the commands of a parent, a teacher, or a speech therapist.
Since it is not paying attention, the child can neither be positively affected, nor proceed to knowledge. His/her perception suffers, negatively affecting behavior.
Children with hyperactivity, when they were infants, had shown some predisposition, being restless and irritable.
As toddlers, no one could employ them in a game for a long time.
At 6-10 years of age, they still do not know how to play.
Playing is very important for spiritual growth and personality formation for a child.
These children leave unnecessarily their position in the classroom, disturbing others, creating discipline problems.
“Without movement with purpose, there is no perception, learning or knowledge.” Maria Summer (1984)
In hyperactivity, we should bring the child to movement with purpose. For this to happen, and for the child to learn to observe, they must first come into harmony with their breathing, experience tranquility and relaxation.
Perception is a continuous process, which is constantly changing with the addition of experience (5-6 years of age), with the ability to discriminate, with the development of abstract thinking.
So, perception is an important prerequisite for the development of cognitive processes-functions.
Vision and hearing play an important role in perception.
A hyperactive child is not growing spiritually, only physically.
It is wrong to be severe or punish hyperactive children, as this may exacerbate the problem and their disorders.
Management and treatment of hyperactivity and ADHD, without drugs.
When affecting the movement of the child, there is a problem in soul-body-breath.
In our view, hyperactive children should be treated as a whole, holistic method of treatment (ganzheitstherapie).
This method, developed and perfected by Maria Summer in Rankweil Austria, is for quick and effective treatment of disorders of speech, voice, breathing and learning, in approximately 60 sessions, without medication.
A child with hyperactivity is constantly anxious and presents respiratory tension, with characteristic high respiration (hochatmung).
The first steps in treatment are to bring peace, relaxation, harmonious breathing for the child.
In the beginning, we only try to make the child relax and pay attention, even for a second.
When we achieve this, we start reinforcing training exercises.
Later on, when we acquire attention for a longer duration, we assign some simple tasks to perform.
With relaxation and achievement of diaphragmatic breathing (i.e. low breathing), the child acquires a new boldness-presence.
Then, we can switch over to different exercises, targeting the acoustic and visual perception.
Important role in what we do with a hyperactive child plays the pause. A couple of seconds or longer breaks are necessary for the positive outcome of any treatment.
Without the break, there can be no perception, attention-concentration, or learning.
The child must learn to wait.
Movement with purpose and pace precede, and are closely related to the development of speech, perception, spiritual evolution.
Early perception is that of motion.
Myokinetic exercises invented and perfected by Maria Summer are not gymnastics, rhythmic exercise, yoga, or meditation.
Operators should experience exercises themselves before passing knowledge to others.
Furthermore, the therapist-educator or psychologist should remain calm, without any stress, with proper diaphragmatic breathing, in order to have a positive impact on the child.
Importantly, he/she should always remain lower in height, or below the height of the child.
We describe herein some exercises for hyperactive children with ADHD. Proper execution of these exercises is more important than quantity. Proper implementation is difficult to describe and must be experienced by each therapist in practical training sessions.
Position hedgehog (der IGEL) leads the child to complete relaxation, fetal position, cutting off most external stimuli, allowing it to concentrate on himself.
With chin to chest, head between legs, body curled forward, arms at sides, the child is kneeling in front of the therapist.
The therapist, at posture IGEL, is kneeling in front of the child’s head on the floor.
With his/her fingers perpendicular, remaining perfectly calm, the therapist makes vibrations along the spine of the child, just aside of the vertebrae, from the bottom up to the head, whispering a hum (summen), in various tones.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
mmmmmmmmoooooooooooooooo…
etc
The child, after a break of some seconds, repeats the hum, mimicking his therapist.
At IGEL posture, the child must slowly be rolled forward. When rising up, after completion of the exercise, the child must slowly stretch initially the lower vertebrae and finally the head.
A big break, of 2-3 minutes, follows, on the floor, on a hard surface, no cushion, chin to chest, cheek leaning down, arms close to the trunk aside of the body, palms facing upward, feet very open, relaxed.
At this posture of complete relaxation-peace, we observe the child’s breathing. We can spot the characteristic high respiration (hochatmung), by the vibrations of the back and shoulders of the child.
In this case, the expert therapist intervenes with various exercises and techniques in order to restore diaphragmatic breathing.
All this is done on the ground, on a hard orthopedic mattress, in a well-ventilated room, with the child wearing overalls and not clothes that restrict his/her movements.
All exercises for proper breathing function should not be conscious for the child, at whom we never mention the word “breathing”.
At cobra posture, the child, from the ground face down slowly lifts his head, keeping the chin attached to the chest, and focuses his gaze, for a few seconds, at a distant point.
When tired, the child returns to the posture of complete relaxation-peace on the ground.
After a few sessions, when we observe improvement, we pass to attention-concentration exercises, on a wooden table.
Therapist and child are sitting side by side on a wooden table, with legs at right angles, hands one over the other at the edge of the table, their foreheads resting on their hands.
The wooden table is a good conductor of pulsations (resonanz) to be transferred from the therapist to the child.
With hums (summen) in different tones and styles, vibrations are transferred to the child from the therapist.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
mmmmmmmmoooooooooooooooo…
etc
In turn, the child, having learned to wait a bit and listen, begins to repeat the hum mimicking his/her therapist.
Later on, we proceed in short-term tasks, like learning words, concepts, etc.
In some cases of hyperactivity the swing posture is appropriate. The child is hugged in our arms, in the fetal position, and slight oscillation is performed.
The therapist must remain completely calm, without breathing wrong.
In this hug, while gently shaking, the therapist murmurs hums, mainly with the letter mmmmmmmmm.
Maria Summer would return in the early stages of development when she understood that a child did not have the right experience.
Conflicts of interest
Athanasios G. Chasapis, Psychologist-Specialist speech therapist using the holistic method.
Stavros Saripanidis, Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
Chasapis Athanasios studied, for many years, at the speech therapist Center and Institute of breathing run by Mrs. Maria Summer, and participated in many seminars for Advanced Speech Therapy abroad.
He then transferred and extensively used these practices of the holistic method (speech-voice-breathing-attention-learning disorders-etc.) in his speech therapy Practice in Greece, from 1982 until now.
He is the author of a forthcoming book in German, which describes extensively the pioneering holistic method of Mrs. Maria Summer, who died in 2007, without leaving a textbook behind.

Liz-
thank you for the support. You are right on. I am overly sensitive, it was not a BAD review, just as Libby said it is not a Bad book. it just was not a good choice for her. we are all different.
thanks for commenting
doug

First of all, the book is for adults. It’s right in the title. Second, ” 365 tips” is also in the title. I wouldn’t consider it a bad review. It was a bad choice for that reviewer. She should have paid more attention to the title. I will respond to her comment.